Question.The proposed paid maternity leave. My understanding is that employers/govt? to pay the employees equivalent to their annual wage (to allow them to retain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed?) Does this possible payment cover those earning hundreds of thousands annually, like a politician for example, all the way down to say, an expectant mum who is employed in the Aged Care industry earning around $30,000 annually. Is the baby bonus included? I will be happy to have someone enlighten me on the subject.
One comment before I go. Shouldnt bringing a baby into the world be something planned, being assured the parents are prepared and financially stable for the addition to their lives. As for 'the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed' I really hope i miss heard that one. How about across the board, to be fair to all, the affluent and the not so, a maternity leave payment equivalent to the Sickness benefit.

There should be no maternity payment - big or small.

There are way too many people on this overcrowded planet already. Maternity leave should be treated like anyone else leaving work in order to pursue their private interests.

Why should the public subsidise some people's hobbies and not others? If people like the idea of having children (or if they just like having sex without considering the consequences), then they should pay for it themselves, or if others support that outdated pursuit, then let them pay for it instead.

Abbott maternity leave scheme is unfair and unaffordable. It's a shocker in my view and I doubt it will get passed.

As for incomes, it's my understanding that it is paid for six months, up to a max income of $150,000 per year, eg, $75,000 max for the six months.

So in other words, if you earn say $60,000 you would receive $30,000 over the six month period. But as I say, I think it's unaffordable.

What I suggest would be a better system, would be to allow intending parents to pay additional into their super, pre tax, up to the allowed amount, as per their annualized earnings for say an average of the past three years.

In the event that they do not have children, within a predetermined period, then the amount contributed to their super would be redrawn out of super and the balance of tax payable would then go on to their incomes. Perhaps there could also be a government paid safety net, similar to sickness benefits.

At least a sysytem like this would mean those wanting a baby would pay for it, and the tax payer is re dived from the burden.

Rehctub "Abbott maternity leave scheme is unfair and unaffordable. It's a shocker in my view and I doubt it will get passed."

So, it was ok to rant and rave about Labor not fulfilling their election promises, but here you are hoping this pre-election promise doesn't get through?

Maybe Abbott lied about paid maternity leave, knowing all along that the opposition would be bound to stop it from actually happening?

Why was Abbott raving on about the huge 'debts' that Labor apparently left our country with, while at the same time promising to deliver an expensive scheme like this paid maternity leave?
Maybe because he knew he wouldn't have to?

This scheme had better go through, given that many people voted for them because of it.
Most other Western countries have a similar scheme, and it is meant to encourage women from all walks of life to stay home with their newborns as long as possible.
I don't think that's a bad policy.

There should be no paid maternity leave and no baby bonus.

It is the choice of the parents and is up to them if and when they can afford it.

shame on the LNP, they are just trying to buy votes as does the ALP.

It seems rather strange that we are stopping mature people, that have reached a productive age, from entering the country yet we are subsidizing the entry of those who will not be productive for a minimum of around 18 years or longer and who are going to be very expensive to get to a productive age.

The idea that an employee is paid money when they are not at work is an oddity of our system. This government's PPL is overly generous, unaffordable and comes at the cost of health, disability and other important services.

Better as a society we look at why people cannot afford to live for a short time on one wage and why housing prices and ensuing debt now make up a much larger chunk of our wage than previously.

Governments of all persuasions are so stuck on the idea of continuous growth and productivity to the detriment of other values and social factors which are largely ignored and are treated with bandaid measures.

Loved the responses. Thank you. There are so many things going on that I cant help but think 'what the?'. Is the country suddenly in the black. The baby bonus, well that caused a baby boom. Particularly girls in the late teens early twenties. ' Lets all get pregnant, get $7,000 (i think) for free, leave school and play adults. It would be interesting to see how many homeless young single mothers resulted from that. The excitement has gone, money gone, single mothers pension, housing commission flat.Free child care, health care card. What was the actual purpose of the whole idea, who was the incentive moneys intended target? What now is the incentive to get a job? Hopefully not all bad outcomes.
Oh more extra money to hand out. Aged pensioners, maybe aged care workers. Still on $20.00 an hour with all that responsibility. No lets give paid maternity leave. Fifty percent of their annual wage. Even though the expecting couple have painstakingly planned, saved and are securely prepared for the change and next step in their lives. The normal way i would have thought. What is the moral justification of the proposal of this Very generous offer to the not needy. Looking after your own and the 'life styles they have become accustomed to'? Time to get back in touch with reality. Have a look around and no not out the window. There seriously are people in genuine need. Hard working and self respecting Aussie families who would give their last dollar to help another. Battling to keep themselves afloat without even imagining asking for a hand out. Aged pensioners! From the era when the whole family worked hard, sometimes ate food that most of us would frown upon. Nothing came as a hand out and nothing was taken for granted.
Im going to stop ranting now, drained! Emotional stuff.

There should be no maternity payment - big or small.
Yuyutsu,
you got my vote for that.

bad policy that can't be afforded. Hopefully reason will win out.

Jodelie, one thing's for certain. If it was men who got pregnant, we could GUARANTEE that for the past 113 years since Federation, men would have been receiving maternity benefits. And they would have been extremely generous benefits. And rightly so.

Suze, while I understand your frustration, we have a situation whereby political parties go to elections with several policies, some their followers like, some they dislike, but to me the last election was an open and shut case, as labor had simply lost control of our borders, wasted far too much tax payer dollars and achieved far too little for me, and as it turns out many, to give them another crack, because heaven knows where we could have ended up had they been successful.

If you wish to browse my pre election post history, you will see that I was clearly opposed to this ridiculously over generous, unaffordable scheme.

As I have said, it's a shocker!

BUT!, Abbott did not win the election on that policy, in fact, im not even sure if he won it, as I would suggest labor lost it.

jodelie, I always amazes me how people like yourself are very quick to judge the rich, stating that it is unfair that they receive hand outs.

Just in case you are not aware, almost half of all tax payers actually receive more in hand outs than they pay in taxes.

So, Have you ever considered that it is they, the rich, who actually pick up the slack and pay the bills FOR EVERYONE!

So rather than give them the tall poppy treatment, perhaps people could show a little gratitude for what they actually contribute to the system and how tough life would be for the majority if they chose to not earn what they earn, or, they chose to earn it elsewhere.

Given many earn less than $30,000 per year, and pay around $300 per year to Medicare, I doubt this would cover many visits to the doctor for them and their families.

The rich make this possible so we should be grateful.

So my beef about the proposal is not about the rich, it's about the proposal it's self.

Rehctub said this about rich people. "if they chose to not earn what they earn". This is a common misconception that some rich people, or those who admire the rich, have.

The assumption is that a rich person actually and personally 'earns' all those millions of dollars. Not so. Almost all of those millions are, via day to day labour, earnt by the hard efforts of the EMPLOYEES, and NOT the boss at the top. The boss then skims off what he wants for himself from the profit margin. That's where the money comes from for his Mercedes and mansion.

So, those billions and billions of company dollars that benefit society, and pay the rich boss, come NOT from the rich person at the top, but 99% from the everyday EMPLOYEES, who labour for it on a daily basis.

philips, nice try, but you can't fool me.

You see the majority of high income earners (those above $104K) who would receive benefits from this scheme would be employees, as employers, as beneficiaries, or company directors, usually don't draw any more than $104,000 for tax reasons and, I have yet to see a family trust or even a P/L company for that matter have a baby.

So in other words, most people who earn $104,000 plus per annum, (rich people) , are employees.

Having said that, those employees are the rich ones who prop up the rest and pay the bills.

So, I ask again, why should they miss out, other than for reasons of jealousy?

Give the damn money that is obviously available, to those who are the most deserving of a break. The old aged pensioners.

rehctub
For your information it was a quote 'to allow them to retain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed' in reference to, as you refer to 'the rich'. Your comment to me 'people like yourself are so quick to judge 'the rich', and apparently i think its unfair that 'the rich' should receive a hand out. Arent you quick to misconstrue and attack. And for further information ,based soley on a moral standing,(I too am a higher wage earner by the way)think the suggestion of the hand out to those who dont need it is ludicrous. I do realize it was Tony Abbotts pledge before elections and it served him well. Its just so unreasonable considering there are so many more needy and deserving, again I refer to the Aged Pensioners. Pretty much never seen because they cant afford to go out. Still with high morals, self pride and never expecting a hand out.

......Give the damn money that is obviously available, to those who are the most deserving of a break. The old aged pensioners.
Posted by jodelie,

Couldn't agree more, but unfortunately there's no money left to give, thanks in large to the past six wasteful years of labor.

As for Abbotts policy, the money was not coming from the tax payer, it was being raised via a 1.5% levy on big business, and that's a double whammy in it's self as many large businesses have their own in-house maternity leave schemes, like the banks.

Also jodelie, one reason many people cheat tax is because there is no reward for paying it, hence, they don't pay as much as they should and who can really blame them.

Reward for effort I say.

The old aged pensioners.
jodelle,
In general yes, I agree. However I know quite a few pensioners who never ever pulled their weight in their younger days & some of them are now receiving more that the average pensioner because thy learned how to exploit the system. Yes they are the exception but 95% of decent pensioners do it unfairly tough & they deserve better.
I have lost a lot to theft in my life & this is now starting to bite as I get to pension age.
I feel truly shafted by the system & what I have to look forward to & then to hear about the fairly well off getting maternity leave pay due to having a good time in the cot whilst I have to cop extensive losses through no fault of my own really does hurt.

I agree with Individual on this.
Not all the retired people are 'poor old pensioners' at all.

While all our elderly deserve to be looked after in their old age by providing them at least a minimum wage, many people have squandered their lives away and not made provision for their retirement, when they could have done.

I believe we should be supporting parents to stay at home with their newborns as long as possible, as this will benefit society in the long run , more than giving more money to the pensioners would.

Yes Suze, but one failure in the system is that those who plan well and figure quite well off, not rich, often get reduced pensions, while those who squandered theirs get looked after, by the very ones who did the right thing.

I have always thought that an old age pension should be a percentage of the tax one has paid during their working lives, with a build in safety net of cause.

It's what I refer to when I say, reward for effort.

I know some aged pensioners who feel a sense of entitlement because "I paid taxes all my life".

Well I'm paying taxes too but I'm also funding my own Superannuation and so will never get the pension they do.

Australia is the only country in the world that pays people not to work indefinitely.
The US makes you take out personal unemployment insurance while working and when that runs out it's welfare and that's much lower than what we get.
I believe that in the old USSR you didn't get a pension unless you worked a minimum number of years.

So why should I have to pay to subsidise what is essentially somebody's personal lifestyle choice to have children?

If you can't feed them, don't breed them. If you really want them, make some personal sacrifices or simply do without.

We're creating a nation of social parasites who want to cash in on their entitlements like those aged pensioners - but much sooner.

This is one of those subjects 'you never talk about at bbq's.' And one where there can really be no generalization. Reward for merit is a pretty solid one though. There are people all across the board, including some aged pensioners, who have been and are dishonest, dodging the system, benefiting at others expense without a second thought. While the others have followed the rules bestowed upon us by the powers to be, to very little reward for their hardworking efforts of a comfortable retirement.
In a perfect world, anyone shafted by the system regardless of their honest efforts would receive justice. Assistance given to individuals and families who despite their efforts and hard work are struggling. Those who make the decisions to give or take away monetary assistance, as well as all the other decisions that usually are non beneficial to the population, be given the opportunity to justify their large earnings and numerous bonuses, to themselves and us. Moral satisfaction that the reward for your work efforts is well earned and justified.

The government’s paid parental leave scheme is bad policy even by Liberal Party standards.

First it introduces more, rather than less, red tape in the form of a new levy on business. The replacement of 5% of company tax by an equivalent levy is a relatively small change, but it is a change in the wrong direction that increases red tape rather than reducing it as the Liberal Party promised it would do. The only way to reduce red tape is to reduce it. This is not an opinion; it is a tautology.

Second the effect of that change in the company tax will be to reduce the investment incomes of retirees, the incomes of superannuation funds, on which many people rely for their retirement and equity investment incomes in general. For the majority of super fund investments this reduction would amount to about 3% of total share investment incomes. The gross reduction in superannuation and equity investment incomes is estimated to be
$1.7billion per year by Robert Gottliebsen; a significant amount of super-fund returns.

But the worst aspect of this proposal is the Liberal Party’s use of a contractual entitlement as a basis for government welfare payments. They argue that because an employee takes annual leave on full pay, then the government should continue this scale of remuneration for tax-payer funded parental leave. Only politicians, with their perk-driven source of pocket money, could accept that such an argument for welfare payments.

I'm with you on this, rache.

>>So why should I have to pay to subsidise what is essentially somebody's personal lifestyle choice to have children?<<

Surely, the only possible rationale for spending taxpayer dollars on the process of raising children is if the product is ultimately owned by the taxpayer. I can see a few objections to this from parents, so we can probably ditch it as a proposition. (Shame though. The ramifications of taxpayer-owned children really should be explored, I think...)

But what is left? If as an employer I can rationalize the expense as part of, say, an employee retention policy, all well and good. But turning it into a universal "right" is going to be massively counter-productive, adding yet another to the list of government "vote-for-me" bribes that lacks any semblance of public-good justification.

Nanny-state bunkum.